


Hold Your Applause

by paralleltonone



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-11
Updated: 2012-12-11
Packaged: 2017-11-20 21:18:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/589739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paralleltonone/pseuds/paralleltonone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Liam wants what he can have, but won't take, and Zayn waits for the day when he finally does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hold Your Applause

**Author's Note:**

> Lyrics taken from Maroon 5's [No Curtain Call](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxK2je7aQqs)

          It hurt sometimes. It hurt his insides like the fires of hell burned or the Arctic bit the skin. He’d grown up reading the fairy tales, all the love stories. He’d seen the movies, heard the songs, watched it take place on stages. There were the knights in shining armor, the Scarletts and the Rhetts, the farm boys whispering ‘as you wish’ to fair maidens, the Eriks and Christines. There were the kisses from a rose, the paper moons, the hopeless devotion to you and the first, last, everythings. None of them mentioned the pain, though. No one ever said how the same thing that would send a euphoric sting of feelings through your entire soul would also crush it like a wrecking ball. No one ever said how something that was that damn good could be like getting a visit from the devil himself. But sometimes, that was how Liam felt. Liam felt that way because he was in love with someone he wasn’t supposed to love, and no ounce of fighting was taking those feelings away.

_You say you need someone_  
 _But everybody does_  
 _I'm no different than you_  
 _I just believe what I do_

_You point your finger at_  
 _Everyone but yourself_  
 _And blame the ones that you love_  
 _Who're only tryin' to help_

          To Zayn, there was nothing sadder than watching someone you love be in agony, especially when there was nothing you could say or do about it, and especially when they were hurting because of you. But that was Liam. Liam was in pain because of Zayn, because he loved Zayn and Zayn loved him back, and Zayn told him so. Zayn wasn’t afraid of what he felt, not like Liam. He didn’t let it break his rest at night or make him tense and hold back when he was near him. None of the things Liam did when it came to Zayn. He gave touches in private that were usually inched out of, spoke secret words that were rarely reciprocated, did things in front of those closet to them as a substitute for shouting his feelings from the rooftops. Liam tried to pretend it wasn’t happening, though. But sometimes, he reacted. He would curl into Zayn’s embrace or he would tell Zayn he was his best friend or he would laugh when Zayn playfully stood on top of furniture to serenade him with his own truthful take on words of swag and what he’d do if he was his boyfriend. Zayn did those things because he was in love with someone he had no qualms about loving, and no amount of being pushed away was taking those feelings away.

_As it's winding down to zero_  
 _I am your unlikely hero_  
 _I'll see this through_  
 _There's so much me in you_  
 _Take this enemy together_  
 _Fight these demons off forever_  
 _Forever, forever, forever_

          Zayn didn’t think there was anything worse than someone being a fake, pretending that reality was fiction and fighting against everything that was true until they believed that fairy tale. But that was Liam. There was an ongoing battle within him everyday. Sauron against Frodo, Toys versus Sid, Andrew and Lafitte battle the British. It was just like that, Zayn imagined, and he could see it written all over Liam’s face whenever brown orbs would lock on one another or skin would brush intentionally. He could hear the sound of Liam’s heart breaking over his own words whenever Liam would feel the need to remind Zayn that he had a girlfriend or that they were just friends. The latter always hurt Zayn just as much as Liam hurt everyday, but yet, he persisted. Zayn didn’t think he had a choice but to as he watched Liam become more and more attached to the curly-haired beauty he freely and publicly gave his heart to. Zayn wanted to make sure he never got too far from Liam’s thoughts. He wanted to keep himself as a part of Liam in anyway he could because he was in love with someone who loved someone else, and that someone else that was winning that war in Liam’s head and heart. Still, Zayn wasn’t losing ammunition to keep pushing, to save him from hurting until Liam came to him, even if he was wounded here and there, and he wasn’t going to let her take those feelings away.

_Five, four, three, two, one_  
 _I won't stop until it's done_  
 _No curtain call_  
 _I will not fall_  
 _This may be the one we've been waiting for_  
 _No curtain call_  
 _Just take it all_

          There were days when Liam would let temptation win, days when he’d indulge in Zayn’s advances. And, on those days, he didn’t hurt. Feather-light kisses would be returned and pushed further to tongues colliding and limbs rolling across a soft surface. Whispers of how much Zayn meant to him passed from his lips even if _those_ words didn’t. Over-the-top dramatizations with invitations to take him here, take him there and take him under came from his end, lighting up Zayn’s face in amusement. Those days were definitely Liam’s favorite days, and Zayn’s too if the way he held onto Liam as if he would disappear when they were together was any indication. Those days felt right to Liam, like it was supposed to be that way. Zayn knew it was right. Zayn knew that they were meant to kiss and cuddle and love the way it played out in all those silly love songs before the beat ended and big screen scenes before the credits rolled and across those stages before the curtain fell. With one another, that was how it was supposed to be and Zayn knew that. He knew that because he was overwhelmed with love for someone who returned that love sometimes because he felt it too, and no moment when he reverted back to days where he pretended he didn’t made those feelings go away.

_I have no time for fear_  
 _Or people in my ear_  
 _Head down and running so fast_  
 _Try not to dwell on the past_

_I'm fighting through this pain_  
 _And things I cannot change_  
 _Running right into the flame_  
 _Rather than running away_

          There were three other peas who fit into that pod with them, three best friends who rarely left their sides. They thought they saw it all, heard it all, and sometimes, they hurt for Zayn. They hurt for Zayn because Zayn didn’t hurt for himself. Louis and Niall and Harry had told him time and time and time again to close the book and tear up the script, that there would be no prince charming with a glass slipper or poison drank and dagger slicing because of loving too much nor would there be any secret meetings in a French garden to confess their love. Liam was pretending not to love Zayn, but Zayn wasn’t much different. They all thought Zayn was in a fairy tale of his own, waiting for that happy ending he’d already written up for him and Liam. But they saw a tragedy rather than a comedy in that script. They’d stuck their noses in, introduced this person and that one to Zayn, gave their speeches about other fish in the sea and what makes Zayn beautiful enough to not let Liam use him the way he did and to not dwell on what they thought wasn’t going to happen. Still, Zayn ignored them. Zayn ignored them because Zayn was in love with someone who would prove them wrong, someone who would show them – right in front of their faces – just how much he loved him back _all_ of the time and not just when his mood changed, and no bit of convincing they tried to do would change those feelings.

_Five, four, three, two, one_  
 _I won't stop until it's done_  
 _No curtain call_  
 _I will not fall_  
 _This may be the one we've been waiting for_  
 _No curtain call_  
 _Just take it all_

          They didn’t understand, even if they tried. Liam knew it was too complicated for them to even comprehend so he never tried to voice his side when they accused him of leading Zayn on. He wasn’t leading him on. He loved Zayn with every breath he took, with every beat of his heart, with every strand and fiber of his being. He felt sorry for them that they were too stupid to see that, too caught up in what they were so convinced they saw rather than focus on what they only got glimpses of. It wasn’t Liam’s fault that they only caught the tail-end of passionate kisses or rarely noticed the embraces between them or couldn’t hear Liam whispering to Zayn how special he was. It wasn’t Liam’s fault that they arrived .5 seconds too late to hear the sounds Liam heard from Zayn from the first and last time the one time they raised the dial as high as they could, surpassing the mark that Liam had always considered the ‘infidelity’ line. It wasn’t Liam’s fault that by the time they saw the two men again, hair had been tamed and sweat had been washed away, remnants of that moment left behind in Zayn’s hotel room. It wasn’t Liam’s fault that Louis, Niall and Harry didn’t know how bad he hurt too, how badly it hit at his core to know that that moment would be only a memory, how much sleep he lost every night just thinking about Zayn. It wasn’t Liam’s fault that they didn’t see the love that resonated all throughout Liam’s whole for Zayn, that he wasn’t using him, that Zayn didn’t need other fish or another protagonist because this was _their_ story. It was their tale because Liam was in love with someone who didn’t give a damn what they thought, and he didn’t care if they knew how much he loved Zayn or didn’t, and no interference on their part would make those feelings disappear.

_Sweat drips down from every angle_  
 _Love your body as it gathers in a pool by your feet_  
 _You turn up the heat_  
 _Tossin' and turnin'_  
 _You cannot sleep_  
 _Quietly weep_  
 _You're in too deep_

          It hurt sometimes. It upset his insides like he’d swallowed acid or Freddy Krueger had come to life in his dreams. It hurt because it wasn’t like the words of Celine or Barry or Marvin, it wasn’t what the Grimms and Perrault scribbled with feathered pens, it wasn’t what Hollywood charged out the wazoo just to view, it wasn’t what played out under bright lights all across New York. It hurt. Every smile, every touch, every kiss, every time Zayn spoke those three words he hardly ever said back. It hurt like hell, and he knew sometimes, it hurt Zayn too. But Zayn didn’t stop. He kept it up, kept vying for Liam’s love and attention. And, even though it caused him a pained greater than anything he’d ever felt and the thoughts of what could be made him lose sleep, Liam didn’t want Zayn to stop. Deep down, a part of him knew what Zayn knew: there they’d have a someday. Zayn lived and breathed for that someday and he knew it would come. It would come when Liam was brave enough to face it, to face there being a them, to not get so scared of what this one and that one and what one would think. It’d come when Liam let those walls around him break down and accept the affections of the one person in the world who loved him far more than anyone else ever had and when he would give himself to Zayn fully, not just sometimes. It would come. Zayn wasn’t going to stop the cameras from rolling and yell ‘cut’, though. He wasn’t going to pull the rope and darken the lights. He was going to wait for someday and wait for Liam because he loved him and Liam loved him back, and they were meant to be, and no amount of pushing away or fighting or pretending or someone else’s imposition would burn the script featuring the happy ending they were destined to have.

_Five, four, three, two, one_  
 _I won't stop until it's done_  
 _No curtain call_  
 _I will not fall_  
 _This may be the one we've been waiting for_  
 _No curtain call_  
 _Just take it all_

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr: [livewhilewereforeveryoung](http://livewhilewereforeveryoung.tumblr.com)


End file.
